Rupert
Murdoch buys $280 million cattle ranch from Americas
Koch dynasty -
10th December 2021
Rupert
Murdoch and Jerry Hall have bought a massive cattle
ranch in Montana. CREDIT: CHRISTOPHER PEARCE
By
Claire Ballentine
Rupert
Murdoch and his wife Jerry Hall just became the new
owners of a $US200 million ($280 million) cattle ranch
in Montana, formerly owned by the billionaire Koch
family.
The
90-year-old media tycoon bought the 340,000-acre
(1375-square-kilometre) property, known as Beaverhead,
said a spokeswoman, declining to comment on the price,
which was earlier reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Murdoch
bought the property from Matador Cattle, a unit of
Koch Industries. The deal is the largest ranch sale
in Montana history, and comes about 70 years after
Fred Koch, founder of the crude oil company that would
later become Koch Industries, originally bought it.
The
ranch is in south-west Montana near Yellowstone National
Park, and features elk, antelope and mule deer.
Theres
also a 45-kilometre-long river for trout fishing and
25 homes. The ranch has nearly 7000 cow/calf pairs
of a variety of breeds, according to Matador Cattles
website.
Murdoch,
whos a political conservative and controls a
media empire that in America includes the Fox News
Channel and the Wall Street Journal, is worth $US8.8
billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
He married Jerry Hall, his fourth wife, in 2016.
Fred
Kochs son, Charles, who now runs Koch Industries,
is one of the most significant donors in recent history
to libertarian and conservative causes.
Bloomberg
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